Alternative Renewable Energy Sources

Welcome to my website on alternative and renewable energy sources where you can learn more about the different sources of energy that we use to generate electricity for pretty much everything we use. This will include not only alternative and renewable energies, but we will go over fossil fuels as well

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What is Alternative and Renewable Energy?

You may not realize it, but alternative and renewable do not mean the same thing. It is possible for an energy source to be both an alternative energy source along with being renewable. Renewable energy is an energy source that does not run out over long periods of time. Solar Energy is a great example of this. As long as the Sun is in the sky, we can generate power and electricity. Fossil Fuels, on the other hand, are the opposite of renewable energy. An example of a fossil fuel is natural gas. Eventually, we will have mined all the natural gas that we can from the planet, and when it is gone, it is gone. For future generations, fossil fuels may not be known to them. Similarly, Alternative Energy is energy sources that do not produce carbon emissions that continue to plague our planet every year. Even though the source of these alternative energy sources may not be completely renewable, it helps the planet by reducing our carbon footprint on Earth.

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Is Alternative Energy is the same as Renewable Energy? This may change depending on who you talk to? In our opinion, we decided to say that alternative energy is another type of energy that is not fossil fuel and burns clean, but may not be a renewable source. This means that we may not have unlimited fuel for the future.

So what is renewable energy anyway? Renewable Energy is an energy source that can never run out or nearly never run out. Unlike some of the fossil fuels that we will eventually mine out of the Earth, Renewable energy sources, such as Solar Energy or Wind Energy, can always be harnessed as long as we still have sunlight and wind.

Fossil Fuels come in many forms including some of the popular fuel sources such as coal, natural gas, and petroleum (crude oil). Most of the power from the United States and most of the world is based on Fossil Fuels. It is a cheap fuel compared to renewable and alternative energy sources, but with new technologies, we are moving towards cleaner and healthier forms of energy and power.

Different Types of Energy - Alternative, Renewable, and Fossil

Solar Energy is heat and radiant light from our Sun that we harness to produce power, heat, and electricity. This is done in many ways including technologies related to solar thermal energy, solar architecture, photovoltaics, solar heating, and more. This is considered an alternative and renewable energy resource. One of the restrictions would be that it requires the Sun to be up, so you can not receive power during the nighttime. Of course, there is an ambulant amount of energy coming from the sun, so even if we gather a fraction of the energy during the day, we could have enough power to get us through the night. Advancement in Solar technologies help us achieve better conversion rates along with better, larger, and efficient energy storage.

Wind Energy or Wind Power comes from harnessing the higher speed winds and turning that energy into electric power via a wind turbine. The wind turbine turns wind energy into mechanical energy which in turn goes into electricity via the generator. It is a clean and renewable source of energy. This alternative energy source requires little land, produces no greenhouse gases or carbon emissions, and requires no water/stream system to produce power. As a further bonus, there is very little, if any, impact on the environment. Usually, many of these wind turbines are constructed close to each other called a Wind Farm. Wind Power alone is not enough to power a grid, though. It is not every day there is wind in every location, so another source of power and energy must be there to supplement the varied energy output from multiple Wind Farms.

Nuclear energy or nuclear power comes from nuclear reactions that release energy. This energy is the result of one of the nuclear processes including Nuclear Fusion, Nuclear Fission, or Nuclear Decay. Nuclear Fission of the actinide elements in the periodic table, namely Uranium, produce a vast majority of the energy produced by us today in Nuclear Power Plants. Nuclear Fusion is using small elements, such as Hydrogen, and combining them to produce larger elements and energy. Nuclear Fission acts like the opposite of Nuclear Fusion. Fission splits large actinide atoms where fusion combines smaller atoms. Nuclear Decay is mostly seen in Geothermal Heat that is harnessed by Geothermal Power Plants. Over time, atoms decay into smaller atoms, and during this nuclear decay process, the release of energy occurs.

Hydropower or Water Energy is generally used for producing electricity, but if you dive deeper into the history of water-powered devices, you will see that it started from some simple projects, such as making a windmill to make flour from grain. Today, you have the more common hydroelectric dams that are constructed across the river, therefore, stopping a large portion of water, so a reservoir builds up behind the dam. The water is then dropped from the top of the damn down through hydroelectric generators to produce electricity. The water is then released back into the river below. The Run-Of-The-River station uses the kinetic energy of the river without the use of a large reservoir. Another type to explore is the pumped-storage hydroelectric system, whereas it pumps water to higher-ground reservoirs in times of low demand and release the water in times of higher demand or when normal system generation is low. There are even other hydro projects out there.

Geothermal Energy comes from geothermal heat beneath the Earth's Crust. Geothermal heat is energy that is generated and stored inside the Earth from the time of the Earth's formation and from nuclear decay of materials. Due to the temperature gradient between the Earth's Core and outer surface, the part we live on, conduction of this geothermal heat occurs driving the heat of the core to the surface. You see this energy in the form of hot springs or as large as volcanos. This heat energy can be harnessed for different purposes, but a large one today is to produce electricity via a Geothermal Power Plant. In theory, there is enough geothermal energy to provide to our world, but costs/profits are big concerns about the future of Geothermal Energy. For the heat spots that are ideal, geothermal power plants are environmentally friendly, reliable, sustainable, and cost-effective. This is a great renewable energy source to look into for future generations.

Biomass Energy is the most common form of each that is out there right now, but it is not commonly known by this name. Anytime you burn wood for your campfire or see a landfill that is burning off some methane gas, this is from Biomass. Wood is the world's largest biomass energy source. This is mainly seen in forest residues such as dead trees, stumps, and etc. It can be seen in a fuel pellet or in some other fuel form. In general, all biomass is biologically-produced matter with a base in oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen. Algae is currently being researched for a non-food resource for biomass fuel. Algae has the ability to grow at speeds much faster than land-based agricultural like corn. Finding the correct type of algae along with optimizing its growth, it may lead us to a improved microalgae as a alternative energy source with a biofuel.

Coal is the fossil fuel that got us to where we are. Powering some of the first steam engines in trains to powering some of the first power plants to deliver electricity, coal is a form of carbon. The most common use for coal is to produce electricity and heat through a process called combustion. In a coal power plant, they first crush up the coal into a powder like substance and throw it into a boiler that burns it. This releases energy that then turns water into steam which turns the turbine and generates power and electricity. Coal is one of the most used sources of energy today for our power plants. The world is trying to move away from this energy due to the carbon emissions and pollution that is produced when burning coal. Natural Gas produces about half of what coal does and seems to be the major path most energy companies are moving towards currently.

Natural Gas is a gas mixture consisting primarily of methane. This naturally occurring hydrocarbon mixture can contain other higher alkanes and possibly traces of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide, or helium. Natural Gas is formed by living biological matter decomposes into the Earth's Crust and is exposed to intense pressure and heat. The stored energy of the biological matter is stored in the chemical bonds of the gas. This process takes millions of years, so when the gas is being mined, there is no way of replacing it quickly. This is why Natural Gas is considered a non-renewable fossil fuel. Burning much cleaner than coal, it is become a popular alternative to its dirty counterpart.

Crude Oil is found by drilling underground. Like most fossil fuels, it is created by very old plant and animal life that died and got into the Earth's crust to the point where pressure and heat combined with being under a sea or lake created this oil over millions of years. Due to this lengthy process, once we drilled and mine for these patches of oil, there is no replacing that fuel source. This is why oil energy is considered a non-renewable fossil fuel. Oil can be used in a variety of ways. Usually seen in industry and automotive uses, oil can also be used for energy production including an oil power plant. Due to rising costs in barrels of oil, alternative sources are being explored.

With the constant development of different technologies and our level of understanding in physics, this section will cover any random possible energy source that doesn't match with the others. With new breakthroughs, we could see a entire new way a looking at energy production.